


Speak for Yourself

by pollinia



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, bucky barnes is a competent guy, getting in before ca:cw changes everything, i-statements are important, steve rogers isn't handling this as well as he thinks he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:29:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollinia/pseuds/pollinia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay, did I like *this*," Bucky asks, dragging his nose up the length of Steve's inner thigh, "'cause I'm pretty sure I did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak for Yourself

Steve's living room feels empty.

At first, he thinks maybe someone broke into the apartment, invaded, tore it apart, emptied it out. He moves through the rooms, does a mental inventory. He finds nothing missing. 

Maybe it's just that he's noticing the way the couch sags more in the middle now, there, in the middle of the room, facing the blank white wall. The dust on the TV screen. The lonely orange enamel teapot on the back burner of the stove, unused, a gift from Dr. Banner. The single plate and cup in the sink. Bread crumbs on the counter.

The place is just as he left it. Maybe it's just that he's different now.

Behind him, Bucky clears his throat. Leans against the frame of the open door. 

"You live here?" Bucky's eyes are narrowed, eyebrows drawn together, duffle bag still slung over his shoulder. 

Steve realizes, for at least the fifth time this week, that he doesn't know how to fix anything.

***

They settle in.

In the first days, things are quiet. Steve is holding off Nick Fury and what's left of SHIELD as much as he can. He can't put it off forever, he knows that, but for now they're treating him like a mourner and even if that's the opposite of what he feels, he'll take the courtesy.

They sit at the kitchen counter a lot. It feels neutral. Bucky leans back in his chair, a coffee mug warm between his palms and he holds eye contact when he asks, "What was I like?"

Steve sighs and swallows a too-big mouthful of hot coffee to delay his answer.

 _When,_ he wants to ask. _Before the war?_ Young _. You were young. Or back further, maybe, back when Ma was alive? Because she would have said "trouble."_

The dirty dishes are piling up in his sink. 

The laundry is taking over the hamper in the bathroom. 

Bucky's few belongings are still piled on the couch and Steve can't bring himself to tidy things up. 

On the first day, he had shoved his mobile phone into a drawer on his bedside table and sometime in the last twenty-four hours, it had stopped rattling against the loose change every few hours. He doesn't know if the battery died, or if his colleagues had simply given up on getting him to answer. 

It doesn't matter. The ending is the same, either way.

Sam will come by in the morning, or Natasha, maybe. They seem to be doing these staggered shifts, offset to appear casual, coincidence, just skillful enough where Steve can't help but to appreciate the valiant effort. They mean to help. He wants to let them.

Across the counter, Bucky clears his throat. "Steve?"

Steve sighs, struggles, grabs onto the first thing that settles into his mind. "Funny," he says, "you were funny."

"Funny," Bucky repeats, turning it over on his tongue.

***

On Monday mornings, Steve jogs with Sam. He has coffee with Natasha before coming home. He thinks he's figured out some kind of life hack by combining these two activities into one day. He enjoys it; they seem satisfied. It gives him more of his week to put his head back together. Everyone wins.

When he jogs into his apartment building, he takes the steps two at a time. His breath comes in rapid deep breaths, as if his lungs remember things the rest of his body has forgotten. Exhaustion is a mental habit he has shaken mostly, but not all the way.

Bucky's lying on the carpet in the living room, his feet propped up on the couch, crossed at the ankles. There's a book in his hands, extended high above his head. His orange sweatshirt rides up his belly. He tosses Steve a lazy smile, turns a page.

"Hey," he says, his eyes already back on the book.

"Hey." Steve kneels by the door to unlace his running shoes. He kicks them into a broken angle beside Bucky's heavy black boots. "How's the book?"

Bucky shrugs. Turns another page. " _Anna Karenina,_ " he says, as if that's an answer.

By the window, a spider plant droops, pale and listless. Steve takes pity on it, fills a glass with water from the kitchen faucet, and treks back into the living room to water it, to grant it mercy. As he passes, Bucky reaches out to snag his ankle.

Steve pauses, looks down, his heart stuttering against his sternum.

Bucky passes him the book, gesturing to a passage.

The text is in Russian.

***

Bucky frowns. "What kind of funny?"

Steve isn't sure what else to say, so he just says, "Buck, come on, stop. That isn't helping."

***

"Shit," Sam swears under his breath and tosses his cards on the table, "fold."

Natasha hums contentedly and drags a finger across the top of her own cards. "Rogers?"

With a sigh, Steve lays his cards face down on his knee and narrows his eyes at her. She smiles back, sweet and menacing in that way she conjures up from the dark, dark, sulfurous pit inside of her. Steve hates playing poker for money with her.

He squints at her some more, watches the way she rubs at her chin with her knuckles, taps her smiling lips with one fingertip. Frowns though her eyes are smiling. She's cycling through their tells. Adopting theirs as a mockery because she has none of her own.

"Son of a...," he mutters and drops his cards, "fold."

Natasha wiggles delightedly in her seat and shows her hand. A pair of fours, and she sweeps her arm out dramatically to gather her winnings: a small pile of dollar bills, Sam's mp3 player, the phone number to the direct line of Tony Stark's publicist.

"Good game, boys," she purrs, folding the dollar bills up and slipping them into the pocket of her hoodie.

"I hate you both," Sam mutters and heads into the kitchen for another beer.

"Lies, Wilson," Natasha answers. She leans back into the couch cushions. "You love us."

From the kitchen, Steve hears the cap pop off a bottle, followed by Sam's exaggerated gulp.

"Fine, I love you guys. A bunch of liars and sneaky spooks and lousy, cheating poker players all of you, but I love you. Happy?" He flops back onto the floor beside the coffee table.

Natasha shrugs, but she looks pleased with herself and kicks her feet into his lap. "Eh," she says.

Steve laughs along with Sam, content and relaxed until he hears the front door open. When he looks over his shoulder, Bucky is standing in the doorway, his arm around a new stack of library books.

It's been getting better, easier. They've moved around each other in this apartment with a calmness the last two weeks. They make dinner. They read. Laugh as light memories filter back in. There must be darker ones too, but Bucky doesn't share those. Steve expects the breakdown, the moment when a knife slices into a tomato for dinner and it triggers something terrible. He expects Bucky curled in on himself and trembling, those gasping tremors that Steve spent his first year fighting down.

It doesn't happen.

Whatever Bucky is doing to cope with the trauma, he's doing it well. Better than Steve had ever managed.

So he smiles at his new-old friend in the doorway and says, "Hey, Buck, wanna play a hand?"

Bucky shakes his head, his hair shifting around his face. But he sets his books on the kitchen counter and walks into the living room anyway. Steve watches him watch the scene for a minute: Natasha shuffling and dealing, Sam pressing the heels of his hands gently along the arches of her feet, the empty beers and dirty plates piled up on the floor. 

Then he crosses the room and sinks to the floor between Steve's feet, his back against the armchair. He shifts to get comfortable, drapes his arms over Steve's thighs, leans back.

Steve hesitates because this is new. Or, it's new _now_ , new along with everything else in this world. But Bucky's weight against him? That's as old as the ground under Brooklyn and nothing makes more sense than to reach out and rest his palms on Bucky's shoulders, waiting for Natasha to deal him in.

Bucky sighs, leans his head back against Steve's stomach. 

Steve keeps his breath steady.

***

"Steve--"

"Sam, come on." 

They're only on mile three. It's too early for this.

"What? You think I'm gonna lecture you?" Sam slows to a stop and laughs into the hem of his shirt as he uses it to swipe sweat off his face. 

Steve shrugs, drops his hands to his knees. He's not tired yet, but he's learned when to fake it, just a little, for Sam's sake.

Sam shakes his head. "Nah, man, you're smart right? You've got it together."

The snort that pushes its way out of Steve's throat is ugly and telling. "I don't have a clue, Sam."

The morning had started out thick and cloud-covered, but the sun is starting to push through in bright cracks along the sky. The heat hasn't broken for two weeks.

Sam sinks down onto a bench; he strips off his shirt. "Listen, how long have you known me? We've been through a lot of crap. You know, the murderous rampage and the entire country's secret intelligence agency raining down out of the sky. Never-ending road trip of Hydra raids, gross hotels, and dead ends. Any of that ringing a bell? Yeah? And did I ever once lecture you?"

"Bulgaria."

Sam barks out a laugh. "I thought we weren't gonna talk about Bulgaria ever, _ever_ again."

Steve laughs and drops onto the bench beside Sam. "I mean, 'lecture' might not be exactly accurate, but I definitely remember a breakdown in Bulgaria. After a lot of...what did they call it? _Rakia?_ The stuff with the plums?"

Sam groans and tips his head back. Closes his eyes. "Life lesson: Don't try to outdrink a supersoldier."

"Sure. Blame science. That's fine."

" _Anyway._ I'm not lecturing. The opposite, Steve. You're doing good. Your boy's doing good."

"Yeah?" Steve tries not to look hopeful.

"Sure. You're a lot more fun to hang out with now." Sam smiles when Steve laughs. He points all the fingers of his right hand at his own chest. "Me and Nat? We talk, man. And we like you better now."

"Good to know."

When he gets home, Bucky's at the counter, peeling an orange. The whole house smells bright, smells like Christmastime even though it's the peak of summer heat. Steve watches him: watches him separate each segment from the body, watches him place it on a small saucer in front of him.  
Finally, the orange dissected, Bucky raises a segment to his mouth, sunlight filtering through the orange flesh so it glows warmly against his lips.

_A flash of teeth._

He bites it in half. Offers the rest to Steve. _(His life is an offering, it always has been.)_

With a groan, Steve shoves Bucky's hand away, grips his chin and chases the citrus taste with his tongue.

***

They fuck four months after Bucky comes home. Steve's not proud of it, but it happens.

It happens and he's racked with guilt while Bucky's cautiously eager.

But the sky doesn't rain down on them with hell fire or meteors or invading aliens, so Steve figures it's okay. Everything's okay.

 _(Afterward, lying on top of the sheets, Bucky asks,_ So, I liked this? _and Steve doesn't know how to respond, but he says,_ Yes _, anyway, even though he knows it's the worst answer possible.)_

***

They wash dishes in soapy water. They rinse them, and pile them high in the wire rack, and put them away once they dry.

They slouch against furniture in the living room for hours. Bucky leaves _Anna Karenina_ half-finished on the coffee table. Steve watches the skyline through the slatted blinds.

They wait until the lighting is right and Steve tells Bucky how he wants him posed before pulling out a sketchbook and starting to draw him.

He works in quick, hard lines. Dashes of ink rubbing against each other, crossing sometimes, to offer the impression of a bent knee, a bowed head, strands of hair brushing against a collarbone. Shadows from the blinds painting bars over Bucky's body, his legs. It's been such a long time, but muscle memory is a hard thing to scrub out.

Steve can tell that Bucky gets restless. He shifts in obvious ways to mess with Steve. Watches for Steve to scowl down at his paper when the shadows don't lie right. He puts on a hat. Shrugs out of his hoodie. Rests a small potted jade plant on his head to make Steve laugh and that's it for drawing for the night. 

They shove the coffee table out of the way and stretch out on their bellies on the floor before turning on the TV. Last week, Bucky discovered on-demand and they love it. Half an hour into a home-improvement show, Bucky nudges Steve's leg with the toe of his heavy, black boot. He pats the carpet close to his ribs. Steve takes the hint and wriggles closer.

Bucky sighs as he drapes an arm over Steve's back.

"You're not very good at this, are you," he asks.

Steve frowns into the carpet.

***

_There's so much salt,_ Steve thinks, _so much salt and I never even knew._

He drags his hand over the expanse of Bucky's ribs, the skin rough with dried sweat. Heat gathers under his palm.

There is so much he never knew. Like this strange, calm Bucky. Before the war, he was endless chatter, endless charm; he'd talk Steve into fits of laughter that stole his breath and left him gasping. And then, after Azzano, during the war, he'd closed up like a dam. There was something building behind his eyes that Steve could see but not name. He never got to see it burst.

But now Bucky is different. He's quiet, but not restricted. He looks at Steve--even here, in the bedroom, dark except for the orange glow of streetlight stretching over their bodies--looks at him with fondness and warmth. Snakes an arm around Steve's waist in the kitchen, on the stairs, once in the grocery store. At home, Bucky chases him with kisses down deep into the pillows or the couch cushions. His lips press and lead where Steve hesitates and questions. It makes Steve's insides flutter.

Afterward, Bucky goes boneless, a rug shaken out in springtime, a cat in the sun. He's boneless and weighted against Steve's side. It was never like this, _indulgent_ , not before. Back then, in Brooklyn, it was quick and apologetic. That was unavoidable. But Bucky's hands on him, that mouth at his neck, a quick exchange of body for body for body: it made the secrecy okay. During the war, it was worse.

Bucky _had_ liked sex--that wasn't a lie, Steve wouldn't, he would never--but the space behind his ribs had crumpled like paper when Bucky had asked, _I liked this?,_ , just one more patchy memory in a long string of them. This one just happened to hurt more than most. Steve shouldn't have answered. He knows Bucky needs to exhume these things on his own, shake off the dirt, name the artifacts.

He knows.

He knows and he knows, until he doesn't.

***

"You know it smells like sex in here, right?" Natasha asks this with one perfect eyebrow raised.

Steve spends the next week cleaning.

***

They're on the living room floor again. Steve's lying down; Bucky's kneeling between his knees, his fingers hooked over Steve's belt.

"Can I," he asks. His breath is so warm on Steve's neck. "Do you want me to?"

Steve nods, but he brushes Bucky's hands away; reaches for his belt himself. Bucky doesn't seem to mind. He occupies himself with the soft hairs low on Steve's abdomen, dragging his fingertips over the contours. 

This week, he's fascinated with a sparse network of thick veins running over the expanse between Steve's navel and his cock. He pays attention to them during sex, but he's especially enchanted afterward, playing his fingers through the sticky mess they've made there, committing the lines to memory.

Bucky drags Steve's pants down his hips, off his legs, lets them drop to the floor. The belt makes a hard sound against the wood. He moves up over Steve's body so they're nose to nose, eye to eye, hip to hip, and Steve can't look away.

That's the thing about Bucky. Steve's never been able to look away. _Side by side in church pews. At his ma's dinner table. Walking beside him out of Hell. Another encampment, across the fire, too close to the others, too obvious. In the cold. As he fell, fell fell._

Steve can't look away and maybe his eyes linger too long on those dark circles, on the worn line of his mouth these days, even when it's swollen and red. The hollows of his cheeks. Steve can't look away and the sight is going to eat him up one day, eat him up clean and lick its lips and he wouldn't trade it for anything--

"Steve."

He blinks. Looks down at Bucky, his chin resting against Steve's chest. 

"You with me, pal," he asks and Steve swallows hard.

"Yeah, Buck," he says, and slips his fingers through Bucky's hair, "I'm here."

Bucky smiles, a stretch of lips, and he drags his teeth over Steve's sternum. "Good," he says, "wouldn't want you to miss the main event."

Bucky's tongue slides out, slips along a meridian bisecting Steve's abdomen. And Steve's line of sight is pulled along on magnetic force.

"Okay, did I like _this_ ," Bucky asks, dragging his nose up the length of Steve's inner thigh, "'cause I'm pretty sure I did."

"Hey, come on," Steve breathes. _Laugh. Make it light._

Bucky exhales a soft laugh. "Is that a no? Okay--" he points his tongue and prods behind Steve's knee, making his shudder against the sheets, "--what about this?"

Steve's answer is a low groan, chasing the electricity shooting up his body.

"Words, or it doesn't count. This?" Bucky's tongue along the crease where Steve's thigh meets his hip.

Steve arches his back.

"Yes or no?"

Gasps. Breath quick and heavy.

 _(Bucky says,_ Steve, if you can't even talk about it, then I'm not sure you deserve to do it.

_So they don't.)_

***

Natasha stands at the kitchen sink, holding a bundle of carrots under the stream of water from the faucet. She scrubs the dirt from all of its creases.

"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of bossy, Rogers?"

She's smiling in that secretive way Steve thinks only he's seen, maybe him and Sam. It makes him feel warm, not so adrift. He cares for Natasha a great deal. 

He bumps his hip against hers. "What's that supposed to mean," he asks, lighthearted.

Sam teaches him about music, but Natasha teaches him about food. Tonight, she's introducing him to leeks. In the grocery store, she'd held one up. It had looked like a weapon. 

_You're going to make me soup tonight,_ she'd said and dropped it in the basket. 

Now he's beside her at the counter, carefully chopping the thick body of the leek into translucent green rings. To him, it just smells like any of the other alliums, like familiar garlic and onions. He's sure he'll like it, though he's not sure what the point is. The twenty-first century seems so redundant.

Natasha shrugs. "Don't get me wrong. I like it. But you're maybe a little too good at that whole Team Leader thing, you know?"

She dices the carrots into little, orange disks with a flurry of her knife and scrapes them into the stock pot. She gestures for the leeks and Steve slides those in, too. He listens to them sizzle in melted butter, inhales a deep lungful of the air as they fill the apartment with their pungent, earthy aroma.

"Is that a good thing?''

Natasha shrugs again.

***

The note says, simply, _Staying with Nat for a few days._

Steve crumples it up and leaves it on the kitchen counter.

***

"What's wrong with me, Sam?" Steve does his best to look miserable. It doesn't take much effort.

Sam laughs and sets his beer down. "Man, I am off the clock."

Steve stares down at the sticky counter. Sam has a thing for places with sticky counters and Steve can't quite pin down why it makes him feel so comfortable, but it does.

Sam sighs. "Come on. We are in a sports bar, eating chicken wings, drinking fancy-ass beers. I'm not going to _diagnose_ you. What kind of counselor do you think I am?"

"No," he says, waving his hand in the air, "not, you know, clinically. Just in general."

"Oh," Sam says, and looks like he doesn't have an answer but wishes he did, "don't over-think it, maybe?"

After this, they'll go to a place a few blocks away where a blues musician plays on Thursdays. Sam is still invested in Steve's musical education. They'll sit at a small, round table in the back corner, beneath a speaker and they will shout to be heard over it. 

Sam will say, "Okay, I know Stark keeps telling you to listen to some Presley--it's old-fashioned and he thinks it's hilarious and maybe there's that whole clean-cut G.I. thing, I don't know, it's probably just his bad taste--but the thing you need to know is, Elvis stole all of his material from guys like this." 

He'll jut his thumb at the stage where a young man sits on a stool, his lean body bent over the guitar splayed on his lap. With quick fingers, he pulls out slow, wailing sounds that make the space behind Steve's sternum twist in on itself like it did every time he lost something. 

He's heard Elvis a few times, but he can't see the connection right off. That's not a bad thing, though. Elvis was all right, not Steve's favorite, but he's suddenly very sad that Bucky missed out on the King. Bucky would have loved it.

***

Bucky's on the couch when Steve gets home, _Anna Karenina_ open on his lap again.

Steve knows it would have been impossible to get drunk with Sam. Still, there's something about changes in sound and light level that make him feel the closest to tipsy he's been in seventy years. Blues music is still rushing in his ears in time with his pulse. 

The relief in his chest is a physical thing. He thinks about kneeling in front of Bucky, laying his head down on Bucky's knees, whispering, "I'm sorry," into the denim again and again.

He's not sure what he's apologizing for. He's not sure if that's what Bucky even wants.

He settles for sinking down into the chair across from him. He toes off his shoes and kicks them under the coffee table.

"Glad you're home, Buck."

Bucky shrugs. "Steve." He sighs like he's thinking about shutting up, but he pushes through it anyway. "I don't want to keep doing this."

"What?" Steve swallows against the panic tightening his throat. "What? No. Bucky, it's okay."

"This is weird, right? You're weirded out. I don't want this to be weird."

Steve pushes himself out of his chair, crosses the room to Bucky, and drops to his knees. "It's not weird." He laughs, but it's a sadder sound than he'd intended. "This is the oldest thing I know."

"Then why is it like I'm living with a stranger?"

Steve can't move. His heart is hammering in his chest. He can feel his pulse in his throat, banging to get out. His eyes sweep over Bucky: the sunken eyes, the carved-out face, the bulk in his shoulders, his thighs, this new, easy way his knees fall open, lazy and comfortable. If someone is a stranger here--

"I'm sorry," he says. It comes out as breath, barely more.

"Steve--"

"I'm sorry we did this so fast. I'm sorry I rushed it. I'm sorry we--"

" _Steve._ "

Steve blinks. Looks up at him.

"Steve, listen." Bucky leans forward, elbows on his knees, inches from Steve's face, "I've got no goddamn problem with _fast_. You know what I've got a problem with? You acting like I don't know what I want."

"No. No, I just--"

"I get it, okay? I get it, Steve. You're not like them. _Jesus._ But you're acting like I haven't wanted exactly this thing since we were two scrawny street rats taking bets on whether you'd make it through another winter."

Steve's breath comes out in shaky waves. There's black creeping in at the edges of his vision.

"Okay? Ain't a goddamn secret to anyone with eyes. Not then and sure as hell not now."

"I know."

"So when I ask you what I liked? Who I was? I'm not asking for me. You think I'm the only one with a head full of oatmeal?"

Steve thinks he's staring at Bucky now, but he can't seem to stop.

"How long did it take you to touch me again?"

Steve has to close his eyes or he might cry. It feels inevitable, the pressure threatening burst inside his chest. "Too long," he answers.

"Right. So," Bucky says, hooking his index finger, the flesh one, under Steve's chin, "what did I like, Stevie? Tell me so I know we _both_ remember."

Steve wants to tell him. He wants to make a list of everything he remembers that made Bucky shiver up the full length of his spine. Wants to remind him what it was like, dancing in their tiny, cramped kitchen, sweaty with city summer, until Bucky'd had enough and he'd pressed Steve up against the counter, pinned him with his hips, his mouth so close to Steve's ear that he could feel Bucky's lips move when he whispered, _Come on, sugar, lemme make you feel real good._

"Buck--"

"Okay, fine," Bucky says, and when Steve opens his eyes, he can see that sharp, amused quirk to Bucky's mouth. He remembers that smile from back alleys and fist fights. "Fine. Then what did _you_ like?"

Steve swallows. This is a blessing and he doesn't dare doubt it. 

"I liked having you in my mouth," he says.

***

It's not enough to have Bucky above him, jerking his hips up off the mattress.

It's not enough to have his fingers gripping Steve's hair so tight it hurts.

It's not enough, not even close, until he hears a gasp claw its way out of Bucky's throat.

Steve hums, his lips around Bucky's cock, his fingers digging into his hip, under his bent knee. There's that salt again, that orange heat pooling inside of him. There's Bucky, right in front of him, making everything make sense again.

"Christ," Bucky bites out, slides his fingers over Steve's cheek, down the front of his throat, around the back of his neck to hold him in place, "wait a second, will ya?"

And this is what Steve will never get over: how the differences don't matter, the similarities don't matter. They are who they are right now, and what matters is flesh and bone and bodies that tether them, the blood that keeps flowing through veins.

Bucky groans, drags Steve up by the neck. Pulls him through the living room, down the hall into the bedroom. The bed is in the middle of the room, but walls work, too. _Bodies to plaster, hips to hips._

"Hey," Bucky breathes. His voice sounds wet.

"Hey." Steve lets Bucky hoist him up against his waist. Suddenly, sight is too much and he has to close his eyes.

"Missed you, pal," Bucky gets out before lifting Steve's shirt over his head.

Steve answers by unbuckling his belt.

***

They lie at right angles to each other on the bedroom floor, Bucky's head pillowed on Steve's stomach.

Steve can tell, distantly that there's light outside of some sort, but whether it's sunrise or streetlamps, he's not sure.

It doesn't matter.

He thinks Bucky is dozing. His breath is so even, so shallow, and he hasn't spoken for at least ten minutes which would have been unheard of in 1941 and is still pretty unusual now. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky's hair, hoping not to wake him. He knows they should get off the hardwood floor soon, but for now it's all right.

Bucky sighs softly against his skin. Pushes his head into Steve's touch. There's something cat-like about Bucky most days, but stray-cat, alley-cat, cat-Steve-would-feed-until-it-moved-right-in and that's all right, too. Steve likes strays. Likes to choose them himself.

This one, he chose almost ninety years ago. Used up a few of those lives, but he's not out yet, lucky Steve. He closes his eyes, licks his lips.

"You were charming," he says. He feels Bucky stir, feels him roll over so, if Steve's eyes were open, they could look at each other. "And you were smart as hell. I'd have dropped out of school if you weren't always helping me catch up."

Bucky pulls his fingers through the hair low on Steve's abdomen. Runs the pad of his thumb over the arch of a hip bone.

"Before, I called you funny," Steve says, flushing suddenly, as if this were somehow the most exposed he had been tonight, "I meant you always made me laugh. I was ninety pounds of nothing and you didn't make me feel awkward. You," and here, he makes a point to meet Bucky's eyes, "always made me feel like I was included in the joke. Even like this."

Bucky is silent for a while, just the rush of his breath over Steve's ribs, their pulses mingling where their skin touches. The quiet is good. It's full.

But finally Bucky swallows. "Ain't no joke here that I know of," he says. Presses his lips to the dip of Steve's navel. "I'm not a saint, Stevie. And you were always the most serious thing."

Outside, Steve can hear birdsong. _Definitely sunrise, then._

"C'mon," he says, shoving at Bucky's head with the heel of his palm, "bed."

Their skin sticks to the wood flooring as they push themselves up, but the sting barely registers. They flop on top of blankets, sheets, wriggle into pillows, each other.

Steve can hear the neighbor's car starting up, the slam of a screen door. He can't see the sun, but it's bouncing off the windows on the apartment building across the street. Its reflection fills the room with orange light, warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are love. Or come say hi over on Tumblr: polliniaa.tumblr.com


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